Bacon Watch '10 Gets Nuts

One night last week I wanted to make cookies but couldn't stand the thought of making regular cookies. Since I had bookmarked a recipe for Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies while surfing the web, my thought process was easy: "Remember seeing that bacon cookie recipe, Beck? Wasn't that sort of a kick?" "Definitely it was a kick. I'm just thinking bacon-in-a-cookie, are we turning into Elvis?" "Would that be such a bad thing?" "No, I'm just saying I don't know about this. How will it taste?" "Trust me, it will be awesome. And if it stinks, we'll never have to make it again." "Ok." (we hug) "You're the best!" "You are."

After that was decided, I threw our bacon package into the freezer so it could get very hard before I had to cut it up. The cookie recipe called for a standard set of ingredients (I had to substitute miniature chocolate chips for real ones because I used only ingredients that I already had in the house (!!!!!!)), and I added the cooked bacon at the end. The link to the recipe I found mentions something about candied bacon, which only made me think of John Candy and Canadian Bacon, so it made me lonesome for John Candy and then I was sad and didn't want to do it.

Please think of me as your intrepid Bacon Watch '10 guide, and not as some gross kid who's putting bacon into foods where it doesn't belong just for like, I don't know, attention or something. I am leading you into the wide world of pork-laced pastries. I am not gross.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies
Courtesy of ClosetCooking.blogspot.com
(Blue comments mine)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (softened, feel free to replace some with bacon grease)
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/8 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark chocolate chunks - I used mini chocolate chips but I think I'd try their suggestion if I could do it over
5 strips bacon - I only used four (diced small) (freeze before slicing)

Directions:
1. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
3. Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in another bowl.
4. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
5. Mix in the chocolate and the bacon.
6. Place the dough onto a cookie sheet one table spoon at a time.
7. Bake in a 350F preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. (Or longer, if your oven is like mine)

Addendum: These cookies came out just as I suspected: a little salty, a little crunchy, and a little delicious. I had some pretty high hopes for them, however, and I will say that they weren't met. My hopes were VERRRRRRY high, though. Very high. Also this could have to do with my sub-par oven and variations on the recipe. I'm not saying they weren't great. They were great! Just not what I would have expected out of a bacon cookie...I guess I thought it would be explosive.